The Archmage’s Swordsmanship Is Too Strong - Chapter 105

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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105
Chapter 105. The Temple of Intellect
***
Only the sound of the mouse wheel turning filled the silence. The bluish glow pouring from the monitor cut through the air of the darkened office in thin, precise lines.
The cursor hovered over the approval submission button. The sensation of the click at my fingertip felt dull.
“Come to the Academy with me. You know there’s a conference being held in South Korea this time, right?”
Breaking the silence was an unexpected proposal from Jung Se-hui. She had already settled herself into the leather sofa at one corner of the office as though it were her own bedroom.
“No.”
The answer came without hesitation. My index finger finally pressed the button. Click. With a brief mechanical sound, the document vanished beyond the digital veil.
“Come on, why not~ You’re really too much.”
“I don’t see a reason why I should go there.”
Jung Se-hui rose from the sofa, her dissatisfaction evident. The leather sheet protested with a squeak as it wrinkled beneath her.
She pushed her tangled hair back roughly and glared at me.
“You’re a Mage. And not just any Mage, but honestly··· a monster of a Mage. At least listen to the reason, okay?”
Her shallow flattery wasn’t worth a response. I leaned back against the chair and closed my eyes.
‘The Academy.’
Those three words from Jung Se-hui’s lips pulled up an old, damp memory that had sunk deep into the recesses of my mind to the surface.
『Cooperando Veritatem Assequimini.』
A Latin phrase carved deep into the massive marble plaque at the main entrance of the Academy.
‘Through cooperation, we shall attain truth.’
A sanctuary that every Mage who has awakened dreams of reaching at least once. A vast collective that judges by a single measure—intellect—regardless of nationality, status, or race.
The world praised it as a haven for magic, the cradle of the most noble truth humanity could attain.
In this world line as well, the Academy’s symbolic power remained unshaken.
Especially in South Korea, where the legendary first-generation Hunter Lee Do-hyun joined the Academy’s lecture hall, its influence had reached its zenith.
Though this world’s Lee Do-hyun harbored the bizarre anomaly of being the chief researcher of the Gate Management Bureau, the foundations that made the Academy a temple of learning couldn’t have been so different from what I once knew.
Yet despite all that, before the Regression, I never did mix with that glorious temple of intellect. Or more precisely—they pushed me out.
Humanity’s Magic was no blessing that fell from the sky one day. It was a product of meticulous discovery, scraped together from blood and screams.
When Gates opened and the dimensions of the Other World collapsed, what poured forth was not merely starving monsters.
Shattered fragments of ancient ruins, Artifacts carved with indecipherable symbols, and geometric ripples of Mana scattered into the atmosphere.
For the first-generation Mages, who possessed no foundational knowledge, deciphering those mysterious traces was survival itself. Impossible alone.
A single line of Formulae for flame discovered in the frozen wastelands of Siberia had to be fitted together with a fragment of wind Rune found in the tropical rainforests of Africa—only then could they barely coax a single spark at their fingertips. An age of barbarism.
The Academy in its infancy was filled with a purity of aspiration rivaling the Academy of ancient Athens. To monopolize knowledge meant the extinction of mankind itself.
Mages from every nation willingly laid upon the Academy’s round table the shards of Formulae they had won at the cost of their own lives.
Without the fierce debates and sleepless research of that collective intellect, the modern system of Mana application would never have been perfected.
But power always follows in knowledge’s wake.
As the great titans of the first generation, Lee Do-hyun among them, fell on the battlefield or vanished one by one, leaving a yawning void, the Academy’s trajectory began to twist.
It was the young, arrogant Mages of the second generation who seized control of the ivory tower. They accepted the legacy of blood spilled by their predecessors as an entitlement.
The noble ideals of ‘cooperation’ and ‘sharing’ hardened like museum specimens, replaced instead by an elitist consciousness bent only on fortifying their own exclusive league.
The pursuit of truth.
Behind that plausible pretext, the naked reality was repulsive. Under an obsession with raising Magical Power purity even slightly, they shoved lower-ranked Hunters into human experimentation as disposable commodities.
They touched forbidden Formulae, accelerating Gate fractures through reckless accidents, yet hid behind the shield of academic achievement.
They left the stench of real combat to mercenaries and swordsmen, while they themselves perched atop the ivory tower, tilting wine glasses and intoxicated by their own intellectual superiority, playing at nobility.
That was the truth of the Academy as I remembered it.
In terms of the past timeline, exactly two years from now. I was expelled from that arrogant nobility’s nest like a heretic cast out.
I absently fingered the ballpoint pen sitting on the desk.
***
My beginning was an empty F-Rank Mana Core so embarrassing it barely deserved a ranking. Those days when I couldn’t even kindle a spark the size of a lighter, mocked by all.
To carve the foundational formulae of first-circle Magic into my mind, I repeated Incantations tens of thousands of times until I coughed blood.
On the lowest rung of battlefields where death was always a step away. My Mana Circuit shattered under monster claws countless times, and I forcibly rewove severed nerves with Magical Power—a cycle without end.
A crude talent that sprouted only after my body screamed and twisted my limits open to their breaking point.
To fill that excruciating void, I obsessed over theory. While others wielded Formulae, I dissected the structure of Formulae themselves.
That was why I entered the Academy as a junior researcher right after graduating from university.
By day I hunted as a member of the Blade Guild; by night I snatched sleep on the cold laboratory floor.
The fruit of that anguished obsession was my first paper, pointing out structural flaws in the Status Window System. The academic world was thrown into upheaval.
My thesis was nothing short of revolutionary, and through it I ascended to the advisory committee, walking what seemed like a straight path to success.
But I did not stop.
Following the Status Window improvements, I proposed constructing a vast ‘Magic Formula Sharing Hub’ linked to the Hunter network.
Just as software developers share code in open-source ecosystems, I envisioned distributing magic formulae essential for survival—from novice Mages to veteran Hunters—transparently and without restriction.
It was not a call to strip anyone of their secrets.
It was simply a deeply rational and humane proposal: to save the Mages in the field who were dying meaninglessly due to monopolization.
I calculated the potential for abuse thoroughly.
I made covert contact with Tallon Musk, a titan of Silicon Valley who pioneered Status Window development, and designed a triple-layer security protocol with perfect precision.
A system that cross-references an Awakened One’s biometric signature with Guild authentication to completely block leakage to criminal organizations.
I believed everything was flawless. But when I stepped onto that podium at the Academy conference, what met me was not applause.
The naked contempt radiating from hundreds of elder Mages. The scorn and jeering pouring from the second-generation Hunters.
“Isn’t the Academy founded on cooperation to achieve truth?”
For them, Magic was monopolized power and capital, and the equality of knowledge was nothing but treason that would crumble their fortress walls.
‘A heretic.’
‘A vulgar agitator shaking the very foundations of scholarship.’
That day, I was expelled from the Academy. They didn’t even give me time to pack my belongings.
My last refuge—where I’d abandoned my path as a Mage because my Core had stagnated and chose instead to live as a scholar—was shattered like that.
***
“What’s with that dazed look? You’re completely lost in thought right now. Did you change your mind?”
Jung Se-hui had somehow drawn close to the Break Room table, leaning her upper body forward. Her perfume mingled with the cool office air.
“No. Not at all.”
I cut short my thoughts and gave a terse reply.
“Well, anyway. I got contacted asking me to present an academic paper on Dekima this time.”
Jung Se-hui spread both her arms wide.
“And it wasn’t just any contact. The Academy Dean herself sent a letter directly. That Dean who just returned to the country.”
She emphasized the word ‘directly.’
“What was the Dean’s name again?”
“It was… Jeon Byung… something.”
“Jeon Byung-jun.”
“Yes, that person. How did you know?”
“How could I not.”
Jeon Byung-jun.
A generation caught between the first and second generation of Mages.
Before the regression, he was the man who stepped down from the Dean’s position not long after I entered the Academy.
There were no notable achievements to speak of. So memory of him remained hazy.
That was all.
That was all the Academy would have reason to take an interest in me.
“Just do it. It’s a technique you discovered with your own aptitude, something you invented yourself. You’d know it better than anyone.”
“Are you seriously asking because you don’t know? Or are you just messing with me?”
She jutted out her lips and tapped the desk in front of me with her palm.
“The Academy conference isn’t just a gathering for Mages. It’s a jungle crawling with government and business figures from around the world, large-scale Guild scouts, and serpentine politicians! How am I supposed to go alone and endure all their venom!”
“Then don’t go.”
“I can’t not go! That’s why I’m saying this! I made a promise with my father.”
Jung Se-hui ruffled her bangs wildly in frustration—a desperate gesture far removed from her usual impeccable self-management.
“What kind of promise.”
“You know I seized authority over the entire Dekima and Mana Stone Cartridge division, right? There was a condition. Go to this Academy conference and perfectly demonstrate Taeseong Energy’s technological prowess, and solidify my position once and for all.”
I stopped organizing the documents and fixed my gaze on her.
The representative of Taeseong Energy. Her father entrusted her with a portion of management authority while simultaneously placing her on the most treacherous trial.
An unspoken pressure that he could reclaim everything if she failed, and a weighing of whether to give her an even larger stage if she succeeded.
“Maintaining a precarious balance, it seems.”
“Exactly. My father doesn’t want me to become like a kite with a broken string, but at the same time, he wants to test whether I can truly stand on my own. I have to seize this opportunity no matter what. If I can imprint the value of Dekima on the stage of the conference, no one will dare touch my division.”
Jung Se-hui clenched her fist. The veins on the back of her hand stood out faintly.
“That way I can maintain the Mana Stone price freeze and research mass production of Dekima on my own terms. This isn’t just my problem!”
Her words were logical, and her justification was solid.
If she lost real power within Taeseong Energy, one of the defensive lines I’d designed would crumble.
Because Dekima, which detects Incubation-type Gates, is one of the critical keys to delaying the world’s destruction.
“That would be the case. The world’s highest authority, after all.”
“So please, come with me to the conference, Kim Do-jin. You’re the only one who can block those lunatics’ questions!”
Jung Se-hui poured out her exasperated plea and threw herself back onto the sofa.
My gaze followed her movements. Between the loose black rider jacket, a thin sleeveless top was precarious and barely concealed.
‘I’m losing it.’
Fluttering.
I picked up the administrative team’s issued blanket that lay beside me and tossed it onto her face without hesitation.
“Ah, seriously! What are you doing!”
Buried under the blanket, Jung Se-hui squeaked. Instead of answering, I rose from my chair. I grabbed the coat hanging on the coat rack and put it on.
“I have nothing on my mind, so I’m leaving. If you’re going to rest, lock the door and do it.”
Whatever difficulties her situation created in the Academy’s political landscape, they were ultimately her burden to bear.
The conference would last a full two weeks.
Whether those days were worth the risk of unforeseen complications in my absence remained an open question.
“I’ll give you a stake in Dekima.”
The moment my hand touched the office doorknob, a low voice reached me from behind. Jung Se-hui’s eyes, now uncovered from the blanket, held a different light than before.
“I won’t deny that thanks to you, Dekima transformed from something as useless as a brick into what it is now. That new software optimization algorithm you wrote—I actually got chills seeing it. I think you deserve a proper equity stake for that.”
It was a proposal that cut straight to the heart of the transaction.
“I’m not taking it.”
I turned my head away and spoke with absolute firmness.
“What kind of person do you think I am?”
I meant it. True, I had rebuilt Dekima’s Mana Circuit and integrated the spatial perception calculation algorithm—but that had been relatively straightforward work for me.
Technical refinement is merely a matter of time.
The true essence of Dekima lies in the idea itself—Ariadne’s Thread—the concept of visualizing traces of magical power to navigate labyrinths.
That creative intuition belongs entirely to Jung Se-hui. I haven’t lived so poorly as to steal another person’s genuine achievement under the guise of equity.
“That’s a shame. Then I suppose there’s nothing for it,” she murmured.
Jung Se-hui pulled the blanket up to her chin, and something oddly composed colored her voice.
Click.
It was the instant before I could turn the doorknob.
“Ninety percent. I’ll give you ninety percent.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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